


Two Weeks

by bazaar



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Book 3, F/F, always korrasami, but still korrasami, no established relationship really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 18:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14879297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazaar/pseuds/bazaar
Summary: It's hard to find peace in small comforts, but she has to try.





	Two Weeks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writerleft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerleft/gifts).



> For WriterLeft's recovery! She's a wonderful writer and person, and y'all should go and check out all of her stuff RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY.

They have a routine. It’s the only thing that keeps Korra from falling off the deep end.

The sun is glaring through her window. She hasn’t slept, and the light in her eyes hurts more than it warms. It reminds her of fire. Fire reminds her that the elements are lost to her, again.

There’s a dull pain, throbbing along the limbs she can still feel. There’s medicine for it, but Korra hates the way it tastes. Sometimes she can’t bring herself to try it. Sometimes she sets it aside, and no one says anything.

Outside her window, a sparrowkeet lands on the spindly little tree branch closest to the temple wall. This is the beginning of her routine. She knows because every day that same bird lands on that same branch as the sun blinds her. Every day she wakes from fleeting hours of fitful sleep and is reminded in some way of the elements. Yesterday it was a sharp intake of breath. The day before, the glass of water on her bedside table. She’s sure that tomorrow will be more of the same.

Next, she sits in bed in silence. She feels whatever pain her nerves offer for as long as it takes for her mother to open the sliding wooden door. She pads in quietly, and Korra thinks that maybe her mother hopes that one day her silence will be worth something. That she’ll enter and find her daughter soundly asleep.

“Good morning, sweetie,” she says. It’s gentle, and Korra appreciates her tone, but she doesn’t have the energy to speak. “I brought some of Pema’s steam buns.”

If she could, she would nod. She doesn’t.

Her mother sets the food on her bedside table, leans down to press a kiss to her forehead. It’s for comfort, yes, but Korra has come to realize that it’s also to take her temperature. She wants to appreciate this, but the energy just isn’t there.

“Is there anything I can get for you, Korra?”

Korra says nothing. She’s ashamed by it, but she can’t bring herself to look at her mother. She knows that it’s breaking her heart, but there’s nothing she can do. Nothing she has the power to do.

But this is all part of the routine. The shame and the silence.

Her mother leaves her with the food and another kiss, and she always promises to be back when Korra needs her. But Korra doesn’t know what she needs. All she knows is that she’s bound to a bed.

She sits in silence for a long time afterwards. After her mother is her father, with a hug and a kiss to her temple. After her father is Tenzin, who never knows what to say, but chats aimlessly. Sometimes Meelo and Ikki and Jinora come to talk about their days, and Korra uses whatever energy she can muster to smile. And after, when the sun is just out of sight of her window, it’s Asami with her wheelchair.

“Hey, you,” she says, not with a forced brightness like some of the others, but with a gentle lilt that Korra appreciates. Asami is the only one who never speaks to her with pity. “I spotted that bird you told me about. I think we could feed it, if you’d like to go outside. I brought some crackers.”

It’s difficult now, looking people in the eye, and Asami is both the easiest and hardest person to do so with. Today, she decides she can, and she’s met with such openness and such care—she’s not sure if she regrets making the choice or not.

“Or we could stay here. I went to the library too.” She reaches into a bag she’s set down on the seat of Korra’s wheelchair. “Nothing too interesting, but I  _did_  find a book on fluid dynamics that I can read to you, if you want to fall asleep.”

It’s a joke, and Korra watches Asami smile to herself as she leafs through the massive tome. In that moment, Korra wants so desperately to laugh. She wants to feel that joy, that mirth—but instead of laughter, she feels emotion well up at the back of her throat.

Asami looks up from her book for Korra’s answer, and her expression falls.

This is part of the routine, too.

Asami sits on the edge of the bed, taking one of Korra’s hands in her own. Her other reaches up to wipe the tears away. Her hands are rough, calloused with use, but they’re gentle.

When Asami comforts her like this, when she feels her hands trying to soothe the pain away, rather than seeing the scene she can’t stop replaying in her mind’s eye—Korra aches. All over. It’s a much duller ache than the ones in her legs or her back or her arms, but she can’t think on it for long enough to find where it stems from. When she thinks about it, she can’t decide whether she wants Asami closer or for her to leave entirely.

But she doesn’t speak much these days, so Asami stays.

Some days, Asami tries to make light conversation, if for no other reason to fill the silence. Korra watches her—the picture of composure—until she realizes that, under the surface, Asami is anything but composed. In her introspection and her silence, Korra notices the little cracks in her facade, and then ruminates on how all of them are her own fault.

Asami picks at her cuticles. Korra isn’t sure if she’s always done it, but when they sit together in silence, she sees the sharp little movements. Later, when she takes her hands, she sees where she’s been damaging her own skin. It hurts to see, because the last thing Korra wants is any of her friends to be wounded like her. But of course, she says nothing. She just stares down at where Asami has taken her hand this time, and notices again.

Asami’s hand is still on her face. She smooths back Korra’s hair.

“My favorite color is blue.”

Korra frowns, she can’t help it. “What?” she says, her voice rough with disuse. It reminds her of why she doesn’t speak.

“My favorite color is blue,” Asami repeats, softer this time, “but it doesn’t look good on me. So I don’t wear it.”

Korra watches her for a long moment. This is new. This isn’t part of the routine.

“My birthday’s in autumn,” Asami says, “two weeks after the equinox.”

That’s interesting. She didn’t know that. She listens.

Asami drops the hand that had been on Korra’s cheek, placing it over where her other hand covers Korra’s. She smiles down at their hands before she speaks again. “My favorite kind of tea is ginseng. I drink it every morning.”

She hadn’t known that either. She imagines Asami in the mornings, sipping her ginseng tea as she gets ready for the day. It’s a foreign thought. She’s never imagined Asami looking any less made-up than she is before her.

“I learned how to drive at ten.”

It genuinely hurts her face, but Korra can’t help but smile. She catches Asami’s eyes, and she smiles back. It’s gone as soon as it had come, but it leaves Korra feeling just a little lighter.

“And I used a welding torch for the first time when I was seven.”

She doesn’t smile this time, but she wants to. She imagines a much smaller Asami, struggling with a torch and mask.

“There’s laws against learning… most of things I learned to do. As a kid.”

 _But you wouldn’t be as amazing as you are without all that,_  Korra thinks, and it’s the first full sentence she’s thought of in a week.

“I’m sure the same could be said for you,” Asami says, a smile evident in her voice.

It could, but Korra doesn’t say anything, she just nods.

They sit in silence for a while. Korra stares down at where their hands are joined. After a moment, Asami breaks from their routine again. She leans forward, gently pressing one hand to the back of Korra’s head, and she presses her lips to Korra’s forehead. It’s so gentle and done with such care that for a fraction of a moment, Korra forgets about everything that’s happened.

When she leans back, she just smiles as easily as ever, and it ruins Korra.

* * *

“What’s better: whale blubber or yak blubber?”

“You  _have_ been reading.”

Asami smirks, angles her head up towards Korra. She’s taken to doing this—laying her head on Korra’s lap. It’s nice, because now she has more feeling in her legs, although movement is still far-off. Asami’s head is a welcome weight.

“Only a little,” she confides, “I wanted to know what kinds of things you do back home.”

Korra notices the change in Asami’s tone. She’s told her about her plans, about her respite to the South. Asami had taken the news… not  _well_ , but not terribly. Korra hadn’t been sure what to think of her reaction then, and now, with the easy affection and the weeks of closeness, she wonders if she’s made the right decision. Even if she hasn’t, she can’t turn back.

She’s not sure of how to react to the change in her friend. She leans her head back against the wall with a soft thump. “Whale blubber,” she says, and it feels false.

Asami hums. “They both sound terrible.”

Korra smirks. “Says you, city girl.”

“That’s right,” Asami says, and her tone is playful and a little indignant, “says me.” There’s a longer pause before Asami speaks again, but when she does, it’s gentler, “Have you liked it here?”

Here, where? Air Temple Island? In this bedroom with Asami’s head on her lap? No. She knows what Asami means, but she can’t help but think of the her little room and the sounds of the waves outside.

“I think so,” she says, and feels more honest than her assertion on whale blubber, “I do miss home sometimes.”

She gets to feel Asami nod, which lightens her mood. She looks down at her friend. Her eyes are closed, and Korra notices that they move ever so slightly under her eyelids. Her mouth ever so slightly open—her red lipstick beginning to fade after a long day. Korra figures it’s because the rest of her makeup has begun to fade too, but she notices a spattering of faint freckles along her cheekbone. Only one—her left—and Korra wonders if she covers them up because they’re uneven.

Without thought, she brushes shaky fingers over her cheek. The moment she touches Asami’s skin, her eyes open, and Korra notices just how green they are.

“You have freckles.”

Asami smiles. It’s so gentle, and her eyes soften too. “I do,” she says, “I have them on my shoulder too.”

Korra doesn’t ask, but she wants to, and it seems that Asami picks up on that. She sits up, and there’s a moment where her hands fumble with the buttons of her collared shirt that Korra feels more aware than she has in two weeks. Two weeks of having her thoughts so far away narrows to the dusting of freckles that Asami reveals on the highest point of her shoulder. It’s then that Korra is struck with the impulse to touch them. She doesn’t. That, she thinks in a moment of strange clarity, might be too much.

Asami pulls her shirt back into place. She smiles at Korra. “I also have one on my butt, but maybe you should just trust me on that one.”

Korra laughs, and the noise startles Asami for a moment before the two of them dissolve into giggles. It’s been so long since she’s laughed, so long since she’s felt the joy she does when Asami wipes at her eyes after they’ve quieted and leans against Korra’s side.

“Is penguin sledding better than regular sledding?”

“Oh,  _so_  much better,” she says, and the way Asami’s eyes light up at her response ignites something deep inside her. In that moment, she wants to promise Asami that she’ll take her one day, but promises aren’t something she can manage just yet. She can’t commit to a future when her recent memory is flooded with pain and suffering and—

Asami takes her hand, almost as if she’d been reading her mind—“We’ll go,” she says, “one day soon.”

 _One day soon_. She smiles at Asami. 

She can do that.


End file.
